Piotr Włostowic ( 1080 – 1153), also known as Peter Wlast or Włost) was a Polish noble, castellan of Wrocław, and a ruler (możnowładca) of part of Silesia. From 1117 he was voivode (palatyn) of the Duke of Poland Bolesław III Wrymouth. Part of the Łabędzie family, and son of Włost, he is likely to have been related to older princes of Silesia. His lands included the territories near Mount Ślęża and Piasek Island near Wrocław. The Dunin clan of noble families claims descent from him. His most famous deed is the capture of Volodar (Wołodar) of Peremyshl (Przemyśl). Later he married Maria, a daughter of Sviatopolk II of Kiev. For this marriage and his adventure in Rus', he was ordered by the Church to reconcile. He was ordered to construct seventy churches. Włostowic, a loyal subject of Bolesław III, had much more negative relations with Bolesław's son, Władysław II the Exile, and especially his wife, Agnes of Babenberg, who considered Włostowic a traitor. In 1146, Włostowic was captured by Władysław, blinded and muted. This mutilation of the popular Włostowic was one of the reasons for a civil war between Władysław and his brothers, as the blinded Włostowic went to Rus', which had so far supported Władysław, and convinced them to break their alliance. Eventually Władysław lost the war and went into exile in 1146. Włostowic regained his position and estates, but his disability and worsening health prevented him from taking further active part in politics, and he died in 1153. Biography Youth Relatively little is known about Włostowic's youth, other than he was a scion of a relatively wealthy and powerful Silesian family, and became a trusted retainer of the duke of Poland, Bolesław III Wrymouth. Twentieth-century German medieval researchers saw Włostowic as a grandson of a Magnus, Count of Wrocław, who was described by the chronicler Gallus Anonymus as a royal who arrived in the 1070s from a land that had just fallen under the yoke of foreign rule. Some historians, most notably Tomasz Jurek, have postulated that Magnus, Count of Wrocław was in fact Magnus Haroldson, the son of the Anglo-Saxon king Harold II, who had fled England along with his siblings following the defeat of their father by William the Conqueror, thereby tracing Włostowic's ancestry to England. The capture of prince Wołodar When Bolesław was engaged in hostilities with Wołodar, prince of Przemyśl, Włostowic used subterfuge